"Ancient Ephesus: The tour starts here!" Ephesus Travelogue by Confucius

I hope I remember everything my tour guide narrated, because this place is very interesting! This is the first photo I took at Ephesus.

Ephesus was an important center of trade and commerce in the Mediterranean world, and was also a political and intellectual center.

Step back into history with a tour of Ephesus

Most of the buildings we see today were constructed between 87 BC and 268 AD, so you are literally walking around columns that may have existed during the time of Christ. Isn't that neat?

Paul, one of the disciples of Jesus, was here!

Perhaps it was at this exact location in my photo that Paul preached his famous sermons to the Artemis cult before writing his biblical epistles commonly known as the "Letters from Paul to the Ephesians"

Imagine what Ephesus looked like 2000 years ago!

I included a woman standing at the bottom left corner of this photo so that you can appreciate how tall these columns really are.

This photo shows what Ephesus looked like long ago

From the Agora looking out to what was once a harbor overlooking the Aegean Sea. Part of the downfall of Ephesus was due to the loss of its natural harbor in the late Byzantine era as the sea gradually receded.

Monument of Memmius is a symbol of Roman authority

This monument was erected by the Romans in 86 B.C. after they defeated a local rebellion in which nearly 80,000 Latin speaking inhabitants were massacred in a single night.

You can learn all kinds of neat stuff at Ephesus!

Here it is! The snake winding around a staff is the symbol of Asclepius, the Greek god of medicine. The international symbol used by pharmacies around the world comes from this one!

Thanks to Larry, I have Nike posing with Nike!

I found somebody with a Nike hat in my tour group to pose next to this relief of Nike, the goddess of victory. Now you can see how the famous "swoosh" got its shape!
(Believe it or not, I couldn't find anybody nearby wearing Nike shoes!)